


Come as you are; as you were.

by youngjusticewriter



Series: Despite your words you care. [6]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Batfamily Feels, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Dysfunctional Family, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Mild Language, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rewrite, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel, that cares in their own dysfunctional way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-28 14:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10122779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjusticewriter/pseuds/youngjusticewriter
Summary: Instead of saying the truth (If I kill myself will I wake up from this nightmare?) or just saying that no he isn't Jason shoots Bruce a warm smile that doesn't even convince himself (the best liars have to able to lie to themselves and God knows Jason needs to be the best damn liar there ever was because no way in hell is he asking dream Bruce for help)."Just school big boob," Jason then grins cheekily because he can grin (a true cheeky, little shit grin of his that use to pee Dick off so much) with blood on his lips and in his mouth while the Joker beats him with a crowbar but he can't - hasn't in years, since he's died - smile like this Jason should.





	1. Chapter 1

He wakes up quietly. There's no deep, dramatic gasp of breath. Only eyelashes fluttering open warily and squinting eyes. 

Jason couldn't help but feel a bit of disappointment. A tired (it doesn't matter how much he could sleep - he would feel exhaustion in his bones) sigh is the only noise in the eerily quiet room. He doesn't want to face the day and the problems that will come with getting up. 

Eventually, sluggishly (with the grace of a  
elephant which is to say none at all), he gets out of his warmth and comfort of his bed to go to the bathroom. Immediately after switching the light switch he freezes. What the actually fruck, is the horrified thought that crosses his mind as he stares dumbly at the mirror above the marble sink. 

Warily he raises a hand to his -but not his, sort of, was his face? His finger tips gently drag down the youthful and unreal face that feels real despite everything. Yet he could feel the skin. In a dream you could think about touching something and do so but you couldn't actually feel in a dream. And maybe the realization that this isn't a dream causes Jason to feel a bit sick because the fucking didn't just hate him. No, it wanted Jason to suffer appar- 

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his bedroom.

"Master Jason breakfast is still warm if you wish to come down and eat it young sir," Alfred was annoyed at him. God. Jason had forgotten how Alfred became ill whenever Bruce or him didn't make it to breakfast in time to enjoy it with each other's company. Besides patrol (which didn't even count in Alfred's book), Bruce and him didn't spend that much time with each other during the week because of school and WE. 

"Sorry, Alfred I'll be down in a minute I still gotta wash the sleep from my eyes," the lie rolls of his tongue and Jason can hear Alfred's footsteps as he walked away from Jason's bedroom. 

There's a urge to sink into the bathroom floor or to crawl back into his warm bed and hopefully wake the fuck up but all Jason does is stay there in front of the mirror staring at himself. Or more accurately his younger self. 

He doesn't pinch himself instead his nails dig into the sink as he stares stupidly at himself. He feels like he's actually going to fucking cry (he doesn't, he hasn't in years, not since he was screaming for his father in a fucking coffin he woke up in). 

Eventually, Jason tells himself that he has to move. Go to breakfast before Alfred gets more upset. (Because hell hath no fury like a passive aggressive English grandfatherly butler.) He feels cold as he does this things; as he pretends everything is fan-fucking-tastic all the while going to face whatever cruel torture the universe decided to bestow upon him. 

Before he even finally arrives at the dinning room (the main one that is) he can smell the food. The cheesy eggs, coffee, and the sausages. It should be mouth watering but all it does is make Jason feel sick to his stomach because this - the smell of the breakfast feast Alfred cooked up for Bruce and him - is sign that this isn't some twisted shit of a dream. 

Somehow, he finds it in himself to smile brightly as he walks into the dinning room when all he wants to do is anything but this. Immediately his eyes land on Bruce. Bruce who looks so damn young despite everything (despite being Gotham's Dark Knight) and it's because he is young (they all are except for Jason). He hasn't two of his sons and had something far worse than death happen to his third son. He hasn't had to tell a girl that it was real, that she was Robin at her death bed. 

If Jason's eyes tear up nobody notices. Bruce is the greatest detective in world except for when it comes to love and Alfred isn't in the room so yeah...

He takes a seat (too far to be even considered near Bruce but too close for Jason's comfort) and heaps different types food as soon as he grabs a plate. As though he's a growing boy instead a man in a shell of who he once was. He's a waking ghost instead of Robin zombie as Steph had once called it. 

The food tastes like warm ashes in his mouth but Jason keeps hurriedly shoving it in his mouth because hey if he's mouth full then he doesn't have talk. (Not that that had actually stopped his younger self much to Alfred and Bruce's ire.) 

Eventually (or perhaps finally), Bruce says something to him. "Jason is there a train you have to catch?" 

It's there; warmth that is. Most wouldn't hear but Jason can and if he has longed to hear it along with love (despite the hatred and hurt he stills feels for and because of Bruce) hidden in Bruce's voice that's just his damn business and nobody in hell ever needs to know. 

Instead of saying the truth (If I kill myself will I wake up from this nightmare?) or just saying that no he fucking isn't Jason shoots Bruce a warm smile that doesn't even convince himself (the best liars have to able to lie to themselves and God knows Jason needs to be the best damn liar there ever was because no way in fucking hell is he asking dream Bruce for help). 

"Just school big boob," Jason then grins cheekily because he can grin (a true cheeky, little shit grin of his that use to piss Dick off so much) with blood on his lips and in his mouth while the Joker beats him with a crowbar but he can't - hasn't in years, since he's died - smile like this Jason should. It's like that Victorian orphan boy (that's show - excuse him anime - Steph had forced Jason to watch) said: Once something is truly lost, one can never get it back again. 

Or something like that. Jason couldn't actually remember the actual quote but yeah the point still stood. 

Bruce sighs into his coffee cup and doesn't say anything. Instead drinks his coffee and reads the Gotham Is column in the Gotham Gazette as he wakes up. Jason should be relieved and he is but a part of him wants Bruce to notice that something is wrong. For him to give a fuck about Jason and he does now (somewhat) when Jason's his soldier but when Jason dies and comes back a murderer he won't.  
Maybe he never did, Jason thought as he mindlessly twirled his fork instead of eating. 

He stays there for a few more agonizing minutes before excusing himself to go get ready for school. Never had he ever been glad to get ready for Gotham Academy. 

His room is a comfort even though it's just another reminder of everything he's lost and has been shoved back onto him. Immediately upon entering it Jason makes for his bed instead of his closet where his Gotham Academy uniform is. 

He crawls onto the soft covers and curls up into himself and just breaths. In and out; inhale and exhale. 

He breaths (because that's all he can do) and doesn't scream or cry. Because this is fucked up and that says something coming from him. When he gets out of this or wakes up he's going to make motherfucker who's behind this pay dearly for this. 

Eventually he forces himself to get up and put on his school uniform with shaking hands that make it hard to button his jacket up. 

By the time he comes back down Bruce has (thankfully) already left for work and Alfred already waiting by the front door with his packed lunch. He smiles kindly at Jason and Jason can't help but smile back even though he isn't happy or even okay. 

"You have all you need Master Jason before we leave?" Alfred asks him as he puts on his shoes that are tight on his toes but are demanded to be worn along with the school uniform by the Academy. 

"Yeah I do," he answers because he does even though earlier he had scrambled to find his homework because Jason had forgotten he use to put his finished homework in a drawer instead of being out and open in the middle of his desk. 

Alfred gives him a smile before opening the door for him because that's how he is. Jason walks through the door because going to school and dealing with assholes who think they're better than him because he was a street kid that was just lucky (a pity case) to be adopted by Bruce Wayne and that is the only reason he's even there beats staying in a house full of...well ghosts Jason supposes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason comes across a corpse after ditching Alfred so he could think on his situation.

The girl's hair was in pigtails, Jason noted as he stepped closer. The crushed stones of the track ballast made a sound sort of like a crunch as he moved closer to the source of the putrid smell that clogged his nostrils.; a smell Jason knew intimately. (Sometimes he'd been reason why the person, now corpse with bullets littered in the body, stunk to high heavens.)

Perhaps it, the pigtails, was an odd thing to note when looking at the bruised and desecrated corpse of a toddler. Jason didn't care though as he stared down at the sight before him. Something in Jason's chest ached. A sentimental part of him wishes he could close the eyes of the girl. Jason didn't though because the theory of this being a dream was becoming a less than likely theory on his mind and if this was real he couldn't just contaminate the crime scene. God, Jason thought before closing his eyes at the sudden realization: forensic evidence of this time was as about as good as Damian's patience with replacement. Which was to say not very good if existent at all. 

What fun, Jason thought as he opened his eyes up to see the corpse of the girl staring (because that's all the corpse could do, the toddler was dead - she would never get to blink again or choose to look Jason in the eyes because someone had brutally stolen her life from her she'd yet to really begin living) at his no longer polished shoes. Instead of polish, there was dirt on them because Jason had ditched Alfred so he could think and didn't have to deal with whatever the hell this situation was. Even if it was for just a few hours. 

Jason couldn't find it in him to feel regret on ditching Alfred even as he stared down at a reminder of why Jason shot bastards like whoever did this to a fucking toddler. 

A kid. She'd just been a red headed girl with pigtails that wore a really ugly looking flower dress. Now she was corpse that stunk to high heavens that the overbearing heat of a Gotham summer surely didn't help. 

Jason stared down at the sight a little longer, his lips thin, eyes looking almost as dead as the girl's as he made a promise to himself and only himself; there was no point in making promises to the dead. But there was a reason - a damn good reason - in killing the person who did this. (So that there wouldn't be another child with pigtails just left to rot and no family members left to wonder if their baby was still alive or dead in some ditch.) 

The crush stones made a crunch sound as Jason walked away. 

The girl's eyes were still opened. They stared at his shoes until Jason, who was on his way to find a police officer or go to GCPD precinct (which ever one was closest), was out of sight. 

[\\] 

It was well into evening when Jason was picked up by Alfred and Bruce. Gordon had called them once he learnt who the witness that found the mutilated corpse of the two year old they were still trying identify. 

Alfred's lips were thin, probably still upset that Jason ditched him, but he was too worried about Jason along with being admittedly horrified and saddened about what happened to the girl to start berating Jason.

Bruce, still in his business suit that stuck out like a sore thumb, looked worried and sure made a big production of it when asking Gordon if Jason was a suspect (which he wasn't). 

After receiving the news Bruce sat next to him in the uncomfortable yellow chairs as they waited for Alfred to finish in the restroom. 

Jason laid his head back on the uncomfortable brick wall before taking in a deep breath of hot air because the air condition was apparently out if the smell of body odor and heat in the building was anything to go by. 

Bruce didn't say anything as they waited. Since Gordon had left and the other officers of the GCPD were too busy to watch Keeping Up With The Waynes, Bruce wasn't making an idiotic spectacle of himself which was very much appreciated. Almost as appreciated as the silence between them because despite the few hours Jason had to himself before smelling the corpse of the red headed girl he'd still hadn't figured out what to do; how he was gonna handle Bruce. 

Maybe it was because of the comforting silence (well the silence between them, the precinct was a buzz) that Jason stopped laying his head back on the brick wall behind him and laid his head on Bruce's shoulder as he plotted how to get his hands on a gun without the man he was currently using as pillow from knowing.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay you'll probably hate me because I finally updated and it's because I decided to go back and rewrite this fic. I deserve that hate but to be honest I wanted to write this better. Longer, more angst, have Jason actually deal with the mindfuckery that is time traveling back before he was murdered by the Joker instead of immediately rushing to the plot of Jason "kidnapping" his future siblings. 
> 
> Yes, Lady Shiva will still make an appearance because I still really want to write that encounter. 
> 
> Alternative title is: How to get away with murdering the Joker, "kidnapping" your future siblings, and last but not least not being murdered (again). 
> 
> Kudos if you know what anime I referenced.


End file.
